Open source operating system quest

While waiting to see if my X300 sells on Craig’s list and before I eBay it, I figured I would go back to my roots and install a bunch of operating systems on the machine. It is very new hardware and I wanted to see what else is out there. For those who don’t know or haven’t ever read my white-paper, I wrote a fairly lengthy paper around 2000 that outlined how to build an open source operating system that was geared 100% towards desktop and laptop users. It covered mainly changes to Linux, but could be easily abstracted out to any operating system. It had things like:

Drop X-Windows in favor of OpenGL foundation with no networking and everything vector based where possible

Standard system APIs for everything, including graphics. No more Gnome vs. KDE vs. whatever

Better file permissions

Better login

Remove TTYs

Remove termcap and all that jazz

Assume latest modern hardware everywhere, even shell/terminals

Fix run-levels and services

Standard hardware abstraction

Better packaging (no more littering files everywhere)

It had a bunch of other stuff, but you get the drift. Some of this stuff has actually happened in the last decade or so. However, a lot of it hasn’t quite gotten there and Linux has suffered from more and more server syndrome that it probably will always be rough around the edges for desktops and laptops.

Anyways, back to the main point… I downloaded and installed a bunch of different operating systems and here’s what I found.

Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, etc)

Same old story. ACPI is rough, the CPU is a hog, the battery life is short, 3D desktop doesn’t quite work, missing drivers, bloated, etc, etc. Definitely a thumbs down on my scale, even though I am currently running Ubuntu on all my machines and love Linux to death, it still sucks for desktop and laptop compared to other OS’s.

OpenSolaris

Sorry to say that this is just like Linux with a different kernel and some minor tweaks here and there. It still runs X-Windows, Gnome and all the other Linux upper layers. Plus, it has worse driver support and very little modern desktop and laptop necessary support such as ACPI, CPU scaling, low voltage, etc. Definitely a thumbs down for now. We’ll see what Sun does. If they are smart, which they don’t appear to be yet, they would drop all the upper layers and build something better and new. They would also drop all the file system standard crap and just start fresh. They have the man power and the money to do it, just not the vision or the drive it seems.

Syllable

This is a very promising OS. They have a lot of the key components, but they have also been using Linux and Unix too long to deviate drastically enough to make it truly usable for the average Laptop and Desktop user. However, it still isn’t 1.0 and they might update some of these things. I never actually got it running, but from what I’ve seen on their website, they have the right idea. If I had some advice for all the developers and users of this OS it would be: hang a sign that says, “can my grandmother use this OS?” on your wall next to your computer and if that answer is ever “no”, fix things until it is “yes”. If I had a million bucks or so laying around, I’d definitely put my money on this project.

Hackitosh

Yeah, just wanted to see if I could get it running and the answer is no. Apple definitely has a great OS. Although some things are still lacking, it is probably the best out there right now. However, it runs best on Apple hardware and I’m not about to fight that. I’m planning on a 100% switch to Mac OSX here soon.

There are a few others that I didn’t get to like Haiku, but they seemed quite new as well and probably wouldn’t have worked all that well. Another thing that was lacking from most of the newest OS variants out there was 64bit support.

That thing looks great. Just need to drop a few other things like Xorg and Linux will be on its way. Unfortunately like so many projects out there, it probably will take a long time to adopt if that happens at all.

Agreed, absolutely. I just came across this via a link from http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7419/3/ and you’re almost exactly where I was two years ago (I now am an extremely satisfied Mac user whose involvement with Linux or CP/M 2001 (aka XP) is strictly limited to VMWare Fusion (which should be on your short list of apps to buy once you Switch).